Shoe sole made of recycled shoes

ABSTRACT

A shoe sole made of recycled shoes is provided, which uses recycled used shoes as a primary constituent of the raw material thereof; wherein general waste shoes or used shoes are recycled completely regardless the materials they have. After being processed to remove metal accessories, the recycled shoes are pulverized to form particles recycled raw material, which is then subjected to high temperature deodorization and drying. The materials of the whole shoes that are recycled is applied, at a percentage of 20-80%, depending upon the desired property of the shoe sole to be made, and added with 5-50% of natural and synthetic rubber material and a proper amount of curing additives, activation prompting agents, and filling agents, followed by uniformly mixing to make a shoe outsole having the desired property. As such, the used shoes can be totally recycled and reused.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

This is a continuation-in-part of the co-pending patent application Ser. No. 12/878,012, owned by the same applicant.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

(a) Technical Field of the Invention

The present invention provides a shoe sole made of recycled shoes, which is a regenerated material of shoe sole formed of recycled discarded or damaged whole shoes, which with metal accessories attached to the shoes being removed first, are pulverized to form a particle like raw material of a suitable size and being subjected to high temperature deodorization and drying to serve as a primary material, taking a percentage of 20-80% for making shoe outsole, and being further added and mixed with a suitable percentage of natural or synthetic rubber materials, and further added with curing additives and activation prompting agents, and subjected to mixing and stirring to provide a raw material having desired properties, so as to facilitate molding and manufacturing of shoe outsole and ensuring environmental-protection cyclical use, which is pollution free, of the shoe sole material and also showing a practical advantage and purpose of reducing manufacturing cost.

(b) Description of the Prior Art

Due to consumption ad waste of resources for industrialization, as well as regeneration and limitation of natural resources of the Earth being difficult, the problem of insufficiency of natural resources becomes extremely severe for various industrial sector and the manufacturing costs of various products are increasingly raised, together with damage of the environment, leading to abrupt change of the ecology and various living conditions, making the modern people of the twenty-first century anxious for protection of environment. Thus, various products that emphasize being green are now available in the market. For the newest environmental protection idea, besides highlighting not damaging the environment, the idea of cyclical use that recycles and reuses resources is emphasized in order to allow the resources and materials to be repeatedly and cyclically reused thereby directly reducing the consumption and waste of energy and material. In this way, the Earth is given a chance for recovery and protection of the Earth can be realized. Considering the management of manufacture, sale, and after-use handling of merchandise products, a design that allows most of materials to be recycled and reused or regenerated is “green” merchandise itself. Taking shoes as an example, most of the materials of shoes are plastics, rubbers, fabrics, and some metal accessories. After use, in recycling, it is frequent that only the rubber of the outsole is collected for recycling and reuse, but there is still a large portion, such as vamps, strings, paper boards, that is not recycled and used due to being not rubber materials, so that classification is needed and most of the materials of shoes become a waste that is incinerated and disposed otherwise. This is not just a waste of resources and is also burdensome for conserving and protecting the environment. There is still a space for developing the ways of reuse of material and reducing the amount of waste, and even complete reuse of the manufacturing material of shoe sole, whereby under the condition that the desired physical properties can be met, the consumption of natural and artificial rubber can be reduced. This is a win-win strategy for both environmental protection and saving of natural resources. Particularly, in respect of the development and use of shoe sole and the recycling and reuse of shoes, it is desired to make the shoe manufacturing chain truly “green”, low cost, cyclic use and thus meeting long term value for the development of shoe sole.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

In view of the blind spots of high costs and complicated processing for the manufacturing and use of the currently available environmental-protection shoe sole materials, the present invention aims to provide a shoe sole made of recycled shoes, where the discarded shoes are collected and recycled and metal accessories are removed, and then pulverization is performed on the collected discarded shoes to form particles of proper sizes, followed by high temperature deodorization and drying to form a recycled raw material, which, depending the desired property of use of shoe sole for different shoes, is mixed with a suitable amount of base rubber and additives for uniformly stirring to manufacture shoe sole with a shoe sole manufacturing process, so that the problem of handling waste shoes can be effectively simplified and the manufacturing cost is greatly reduced. This effectively improves the impractical situation in making the conventional shoe sole materials.

An objective of the present invention is to provide a primary material that is formed of recycled discarded shoes of any material, which, after being processed to remove metal accessories from the shoes, is subjected to heating for deodorization and drying processing to then serve as a major portion of a molding material, depending on the desired property for molding, which is added with a substantial amount of base rubber to make a shoe outsole, so that the cost for manufacturing material can be greatly reduced and an environmental-protection and economic purpose of recycling and cyclic use of shoes is achieved.

The foregoing object and summary provide only a brief introduction to the present invention. To fully appreciate these and other objects of the present invention as well as the invention itself, all of which will become apparent to those skilled in the art, the following detailed description of the invention and the claims should be read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. Throughout the specification and drawings identical reference numerals refer to identical or similar parts.

Many other advantages and features of the present invention will become manifest to those versed in the art upon making reference to the detailed description and the accompanying sheets of drawings in which a preferred structural embodiment incorporating the principles of the present invention is shown by way of illustrative example.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 shows a flow chart of a manufacturing processed used to make an environmental-protection shoe sole made of recycled shoes.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

The following descriptions are of exemplary embodiments only, and are not intended to limit the scope, applicability or configuration of the invention in any way. Rather, the following description provides a convenient illustration for implementing exemplary embodiments of the invention. Various changes to the described embodiments may be made in the function and arrangement of the elements described without departing from the scope of the invention as set forth in the appended claims.

The present invention provides a shoe sole made of recycled shoes of which the manufacture is designed in such a way as illustrated in the process shown in FIG. 1, of which a brief description will be given as follows. The manufacture process is close to the known process of shaping shoe sole but is characterized in that the raw material (10) for the manufacture uses used and flaw products of waste and discarded shoes (11) of any material as a main body of recycling, including general broken and discarded sports shoes, leather shoes, work shoes, informal footwear, and high-heeled shoes, which can be any type of broken and discarded shoes, and both indoor and outdoor shoes can be recycled and used in the present invention. These recycled shoes do not need to be subjected to classification or other specific processing and only the metal accessories that are attached to the recycled shoes (11) need to be first subjected to a detaching/removing process (12). In other words, metal parts are recycled separately and the recycled shoes (11) with the metal parts removed are collectively disposed in a pulverization machine for pulverization processing (13) so as to be broken into tiny pieces or powders having a particle size less than around 5 mmF, one that is preferred being between 5 mm-178μ and no limitation being imposed to the shape. For particles having a size greater than 5 mm, the practical operation of bonding the particles become hard and for particles having a size less than 178 μmm, they are too tiny and may make the processing complicated, leading to an undesired increase of processing cost. These pulverized tiny pieces are then fed through a nearly enclosed tunnel-like conveying device and are subjected to high-temperature deodorization processing (14) by applying high temperature steam that is at least 120° C., so that the recycled and pulverized shoes are so processed to be relatively cleaned and free of odors and are then subjected to hot air drying processing (15) to form uniformly-pulverized “green” recycled shoe sole raw material (10).

The shoe sole raw material (10) that is made of the recycled shoes (11) is prepared with a suitable percentage of weight and, depending on the physical properties desired for the shoe sole to be made, such a raw material is used at a high percentage of 20-80%, to which a base rubber (20) that is formed by mixing together natural rubber, artificial rubber additives, filling agents, taking a ratio of 8-50%, is added and is then disposed in a tank for stirring and mixing (21) by machines to meet the desired requirements of uniform mixture, wherein the mixture ratio can be modified in accordance with the desired property of the shoe sole so made, by timely adding, among a total amount, 5-13% additives, including bridging agents, prompting agents, activating agents, aging-preventing agents, and processing facilitating agents. Formulas made up of different ratios of the constituents mentioned above have been tested under the condition of ASTM-D1052, 90° angle, temperature 23±2° C., punch=2.5 mm, showing that cut growth is all 0 mm for 0-40,000 cycles, 40,001-50,000 cycles, 50,001-60,000 cycles, 60,001-70,000 cycles, and 70,001-80,000 cycles. The following test results are also obtained and listed in tables:

test 20% raw 30% raw 40% raw 50% raw 60% raw 70% raw 80% raw description material material material material material material material hardness 62-64 62-64 62-64 62-64 62-64 62-64 62-64 (type A) density 1.14 1.23 1.25 1.27 1.28 1.29 1.31 (mg/mm³) abrasion 164.1 224.9 265 295 333.5 419.5 517 (mm³) tensile 71.98 43.58 36.44 27.51 20.65 15.56 14.71 strength (kgf/cm²) elongation (%) 749 505 394 296 293.5 213.5 184.5 trouser tear 29.67 27.57 22.54 18.85 14.64 12.73 12.88 strength (kgf/cm)

raw material raw material raw material raw raw test 100 mesh 40 mesh 20 mesh material material description (0.15 mm) (0.425 mm) (0.85 mm) (2-3 mm) (3-5 mm) hardness (type A) 62-64 62-64 62-64 62-64 62-64 density (mg/mm³) 1.14 1.23 1.25 1.27 1.28 abrasion (mm³) 164.1 224.9 265 295 333.5 tensile strength (kgf/cm²) 71.98 43.58 36.44 27.51 20.65 elongation (%) 749 505 394 296 293.5 trouser tear strength (kgf/cm) 29.67 27.57 22.54 18.85 14.64

It is noted that the figures listed in the above tables are average value and the tests are done with the following test machines, tensile strength test machine: GOTECH AI-7000S, abrasion test machine: GOTECH GT-7012-D, and density test machine: Precisa XS 125A.

The test results show that manufacture of outsoles of shoe by using the recycled raw material (10) according to the present invention can be realized by varying the ratios of these constituents in order to meet the need of different physical properties, wherein if the amount of the raw material of the present invention is used at a ratio less than 20%, the desired value of environmental protection and diversification simply cannot be reached; on the other hand, if the amount of the recycled raw material (10) used exceed the 80% level as listed in the above tables, then the physical property becomes too poor to be used, especially when processed by a planar rolling machine to for plate pressing (22), the excessively low viscosity makes it impossible to form a plate like material for molding shoe soles. Thus, for raw material (10) that is within an economic recycling range of preset ratio, with proper addition of the additives, the plate-like material can be rolled and forms a roll of raw material sheet to facilitate subsequent trimming and storage. The thickness of the sheet material is generally less than 30 mm for practical applications and can be varied in accordance with the actual applications.

In making a shoe sole, the material sheet that is formed by being pressed into a sheet like form is cut to a desired size and is then directly positioned in a molding device for molding processing (23), which is subjected to pressurization and heating by a hydraulic machine for curing and shaping (24) thereby forming a complete, desired shape of the shoe outsole. The shoe sole raw material in accordance with the present invention has been tested as what mentioned above for a large number of cycles, in which the mixed, environmental-protection, recycled raw material (10) takes a percentage of 50% of the material that is used to mold shoe sole, further added with base rubber (20) in the percentage of around 45%, together with additives, such as sulfur for facilitating curing of rubber, and rubber curing prompting agents, which together take a percentage of approximately 5% and, after being mixed at a suitable ratio, is directly mixed with the raw material and uniformly stirred (21) for being further subjected to plate pressing processing (22) to form a roll of sheet material that facilitates stacking and winding for subsequent molding and/or cutting operation. Sheets of suitable size of the raw material (10) are disposed, in a quantitative manner, in the mold for molding processing (23) by clamping together upper and lower mold members to thereby allow of proceeding of heating and pressurizing for curing and shaping processing (24). With the assistance for curing realized with the sulfur additives and the activation caused by the curing prompting agents that are mixed in the raw material, the flowability of the raw material can be significantly enhanced to completely fill the internal volume of a mold cavity to complete the shaping of a shoe sole. The temperature of heating for general shoe sole molding is around 100-160° C. As to the mixing ratios of the compositions of the raw material, in accordance with the desired properties of the actually made shoe sole, the mixing ratio of raw material can be made different for molding operation. A semi-finished product of the molding operation, after being removed from the mold, is subjected to a trimming operation and an environmental-protection shoe sole product (25) is thus completed.

The environmental-protection shoe outsole is primarily made of a material obtained from complete recycled shoes of any materials, and both indoor shoes and outdoor shoes can be simply recycled and used, and wherein, depending on the requirement for the use of shoe sole, the mixing ratio of can be adjusted, together with adding filling agents for contact enhancing. Generally, a proper amount of 5-10% of the filling agents is added and mixed, such as the substances of Kaolin, calcium carbonate, and glass powder, of which the ratios can be modified by adjustment of the amounts added in accordance with the requirements for hardness, so that reinforcement of properties in association with wear-resistance and being rigid can be realized, making the shoe sole more practical. This is similar to the manufacturing of the existing shoe sole and constitutes no novel part of the present invention, so that no further detail is needed herein. The features of the present invention are that the environmental-protection raw material (10) is made of a primary constituent component obtained from complete recycled used shoes, which, with only the metal accessories removed from the shoes, can be disposed in a machine for pulverization processing (13), and this provides an advantage of practical operation in that labor is saved and the a used shoe can be completely re-used, whereby environmental conservation by recycling and re-using discarded shoes can be realized. The whole process does not increase cost and processing steps and continuous production can be performed with an existing manufacturing line, whereby the effectiveness of environmental-protection recycling, simplification, practicability can be achieved and the issue of handling used shoes in an environmental protection manner can be addressed, showing economic advantage of saving labor and having a practical structure and also realizing real environmental protection for sustainable recycling and reusing and complete regeneration.

In the above manufacturing of the environmental-protection shoe sole, the raw material (10) is obtained from arbitrary shoes that are discarded and recycled and a suitable amount of base rubber (20) mixed together to provide the desired physical properties, allowing repeated recycling and reuse and thus serving as an environmental-protection raw material that can be cyclically and repeated regenerated. Thus, the molding and manufacturing of shoe outsole is performed with various constituent materials that are uniformly mixed at desired ratios so that the shoe outsole product that is so molded shows a decrease of overall weight, thereby achieving the purpose of making product light-weighted. This is because the various materials used to mold the shoe sole include various fabrics and wood that are of small specific weights, so that under the same volume, the small specific weights leads to a reduced overall weight. This cannot be matched by the existing shoe sole and an advantage of material recycling that is total environmental protection and completely free of contamination. The whole manufacturing process can be done in a continuously producing manner, requiring no particular processing technology and can be planned and controlled with automatic manufacturing lines so that the manufacturing is automatized and continuous, and there is no needed to do manufacturing in segmentized process with additional interconnection therebetween. That is to say that the present invention provides a combination and design of shoe sole material that is of extreme novelty. A conservative estimation indicates that the overall manufacturing cost is reduced by 15-30% as compared to conventional manufacturing of shoe sole. In view of the idea and advantages of recycling and reuse f discarded waste shoes, the present invention provides a design for manufacturing, in a novel way, of environmental-protection shoe sole, which is of great economic values and offers a true value that is beyond comparison by the currently existing environmental protection shoe soles.

In summary, the present invention offers a shoe sole that is made of whole shoes that are recycled by using the recycled shoes in an intact manner for pulverization and mixing for subsequent processing, together with a suitable amount of base rubber, followed by adjustment and shaping, to thereby allow the shoe sole to be unlimitedly recycled and reused with the least amount of material lost, and actually providing the features of use of environmental protection substances. In the respect of material development and design, the present invention offers the advantages of reduction of manufacturing costs, simplification of manufacturing process, and enhancement of practical value.

It will be understood that each of the elements described above, or two or more together may also find a useful application in other types of methods differing from the type described above.

While certain novel features of this invention have been shown and described and are pointed out in the annexed claim, it is not intended to be limited to the details above, since it will be understood that various omissions, modifications, substitutions and changes in the forms and details of the device illustrated and in its operation can be made by those skilled in the art without departing in any way from the spirit of the present invention. 

1. A shoe sole made of recycled shoes, the shoe sole being manufactured by steps of mixing and stirring raw materials, molding and shaping, and trimming, characterized in that the raw material is comprised of a primary constituent of recycled whole shoes, which, after being subjected to removal of metal accessories, is disposed in a machine for pulverization processing to form pulverized particles that are broken so as to form shoe sole raw material particles having a size between 5 mm-178 μmm, wherein such a raw material, when used, takes a high percentage of 20-80% and is added with a base rubber having a ratio of 8-50% to be uniformly mixed, and further and timely added, among a total amount, with 5-13% additives, all being mixed and pressed to form sheet material of shoe sole having a thickness less than 30 mm.
 2. The shoe sole made of recycled shoes according to claim 1, wherein the recycled shoes that are used to form the raw material are arbitrary shoes including indoor and outdoor shoes.
 3. The shoe sole made of recycled shoes according to claim 1, wherein in mixing and stirring of the shoe sole sheet material, the material is added with filling agents including Kaolin, calcium carbonate, and glass powder to offer rigid properties of the sheet material.
 4. The shoe sole made of recycled shoes according to claim 1, wherein in mixing and stirring of the base rubber, the material is added with filling agents including Kaolin, calcium carbonate, and glass powder to offer rigid properties of the sheet material. 